Blood Wedding

Murray waved the pistol he was holding loosely in his right hand.

“What if I just shoot you instead?” he asked.

“You could do that,” Fargo said. “But you’d still see the top of her head come off. You ought to know that. I have my finger on the trigger, and if you shoot me, there’s no way in hell I won’t pull it. Even if you kill me, I’ll pull it.”

Murray sat easy on his horse and looked over Fargo’s head at the men who’d come from the barn. He nodded at them. They holstered their pistols and went to get their horses.

“Supposing I let you live,” Murray said. “What then?”

“Your daughter lives, too.”

“You mean you’ll let her go, don’t you? You live, I get my daughter back.”

Fargo gave him a tight grin.

“No, Murray, that’s not the way it works. I don’t trust you any more than I’d trust a diamondback rattler. As soon as I let her go, you’d gun me down where I stand. So you’re not getting her back.”

“If I’m not getting her back, then just what did you have in mind?”

“She goes with me. I see to it that her wound gets taken care of. When she’s ready, she comes back to you.”

Angel didn’t seem to think much of the idea. She tried to pull herself out of Fargo’s grasp, but he pushed her arm a little higher and kept the pistol barrel punched into her chin.

“She’s got spirit, Fargo,” Murray said. “But you’re the one with the pistol.”

“I guess that means you’re going to take the deal.”

“You don’t trust me,” Murray said. “But I’m supposed to trust you, is that what you’re telling me?”

“That’s about the size of it,” Fargo said.

“Well, to hell with that, you son of a bitch. I’d lay odds you’re the one killed my son last night, and today you’ve shot my daughter. And now you want me to trust you?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t give a damn whether you trust me or not. That doesn’t have anything to do with it. We’re talking about your daughter’s life here, Murray. I shot her, but she’s alive. That’s more than I can say for the others I shot.”

The two men lay not far from where Fargo stood. Neither of them had moved since hitting the ground, and they weren’t likely to move ever again.

“If you don’t let your daughter go with me,” Fargo said, “she’ll wind up as dead as they are. I don’t see that you have much choice.”

Angel spoke for the first time. “Kill the son of a bitch.”

“You heard her Murray. Go ahead. Maybe it’s worth a try. It’s either that or ride away. Your choice.”

Murray sat and thought it over. For all the anxiety that showed on his face, he might have been considering whether to wear a black shirt or a blue one.

“Suppose I go along with you,” he said after a couple of long minutes had gone by. “How long do you keep her?”

“I told you. Until she’s ready to ride away.”

“That won’t be long,” Angel said. “You bastard.”

Murray went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

“And you’ll just let her ride away?”

“You have my word on that.”

“I don’t know what your word’s worth, Fargo, but it seems like I’m going to find out.”

“Just make up your mind,” Fargo said. “This pistol’s getting heavy. My finger might slip.”

“All right,” Murray said. “I guess you have me over a barrel. But I have to warn you about something.”

“What’s that?” Fargo asked.

“If anything happens to Angel, I’m going to come after you and kill you. There won’t be anything to stop me. And while I’m at it, I’ll burn every house and barn and field within fifty miles. You have my word on that. And my word’s good.”

“I believe you,” Fargo said, but Murray wasn’t listening. He nodded at his men, and they rode past Fargo, joining the men who waited at the barn.

“You son of a bitch,” Angel said. “Let go of my arm.”

“Not yet,” Fargo said. “I don’t trust your father enough to do that.”

“He’s not going to do anything. Let go of me.”

Murray and his men rode away without a backward glance. When Fargo judged they were out of firing range, he let go of Angel’s arm, and she promptly fainted dead away. Which made it a lot easier for Fargo to throw her on a horse and take her away from there.

“You should’ve killed him,” Molly said. “You had him right there, and you let him get away.”

“If I’d killed him, there would still have been plenty of others to get rid of me and come after you,” Fargo reminded her. “And come after everybody else, too.”

“And you promised him you wouldn’t kill Angel. Dammit, why did you have to do that?”

“Because I wanted to get out of there alive, for one thing, and I didn’t want Murray killing everybody else, which is what he would have done.”

“Damn. But you’re probably right. I’ll bet you always keep your promises, too, don’t you.”

Fargo nodded.

“I knew it. That’s the kind of man you are. So you can’t kill her. How about if I kill her?”